Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid

'Adrian Guelke has a considerable reputation for effectively challenging the conventional wisdom. This text amply confirms his analytical skills and - in particular - a willingness to take issue with more orthodox interpretations of South Africa's role in international politics.' - Professor J.E.Spence OBE, King's College London, UK '[O]riginal and well-informed...The chapters work best where there is a conventional wisdom to be exploded, but Geulke also makes fresh sense out of a number of unusually contested issues, for example whether segregation was 'home-grown' or 'imported', whether there was or was not a 'blue-print' for apartheid, and whether the Botha presidency should be understood as a new departure or a 'militarized cul de sac'. - Anthony Butler, Political Studies Review 'His book is a significant contribution to our understanding of how profoundly global developments influenced in the past and are likely in the future to influence South Africa.' - Merle Lipton, International Affairs

Providing a much-needed antidote to recent revisionist attempts to 'rehabilitate' apartheid, this major new text by a leading authority offers a considered and substantive reassessment of the nature, endurance and significance of apartheid in South Africa as well as the reasons for its dramatic collapse.Providing a much-needed antidote to recent revisionist attempts to 'rehabilitate' apartheid, this major new text by a leading authority offers a considered and substantive reassessment of the nature, endurance and significance of apartheid in South Africa as well as the reasons for its dramatic collapse. Paying particular attention to the international dimension as well as the domestic, the author assesses the impact of anti-apartheid protest, of changing attitudes of Western governments to the apartheid regime and the evolution of South African government policies to the outside world.